A Little Thing Like That

--A. R. Ammons

life comes under no other

propositions than mountain decrees,

it seems at times;

seldom if a meander is allowed

can one see it far: it bends

away with its willows

behind a boulder-head or sheer face-off:

winding is the way of life

I would chose, would you, if

I could choose, for I would

like always to be on the other side

of wherever there's trouble

or pointing responsibility

or too much nailing down: just the

flexibility of brooks, dribbling over

stones or swelling up to dribble

over stones: I have always felt,

as one should, I think, shy

of mountains: they don't seem like

breasts to me--

                  but they rise

up august into air-starving presences

and they command views: I like

to swerve away from commands

because I'm unconvinced that I could

do all the things I might

be commanded to do or that I would

want to do them, and I would rather

feint a dissolve into a curvature,

a curvature of disappearance, as

around a hill or down from a rise:

may I not feel the speech of mountains

when they "speak" and may I wander

with meanders, not seeing far (ahead

or behind) and picking up willows

wherever possible, or alders and

stopping to have lunch in the shade

and drink from boulder-drained melts.